Dravid hits half century

MUMBAI: The penultimate day of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal between Karnataka and Saurashtra was eventful with Rahul Dravid making a half century, Sandeep Jobanputra taking five wickets and Ravindra Jadeja scalping four and 14 wickets falling in all.

At the Brabourne Stadium, after bowling out Saurashtra for 189, Karnataka were dismissed for 208 in their second innings. This left Saurashtra with a target of 325 with 93 overs in which to get the runs. At stumps they needed another 315 runs. However, they had lost two wickets.

Resuming at 180-8, Saurashtra were bundled out in 12 balls. Thereafter, it was Karnataka’s turn to pile on as many runs as possible and make Saurashtra bat on a Day Four wicket, which is sure to assist the seamers in the first session and spinners later on.

But in the process of setting a difficult target, Karnataka went off the rails. Karnataka had a horrible start losing three of their frontline batsmen - KB Pawan (0), captain Robin Uthappa (5) and CM Gautam (26) - with only 43 runs on the board.

Dravid then put all his powers of concentration to good use to stem the rot with a sedate but fluent 52.

Brief scores: Karnataka 305 & 208 (Dravid 52, Akhil 56; Jobanputra 5-54, Jadeja 4-58) vs Saurashtra 189 & 10-2 (Chauhan 6*; Vinay Kumar 2-1)